All Restrictions End

In the early days of the Iranian revolution, anyone with press lines on his trousers would be dismissed from work. How can one say his prayers to Allah without breaking his trousers' press lines?' This and other reflections on Islam and clothing characterize the thought-provoking free-form documentary ALL RESTRICTIONS END.

With clothing as the leitmotif, the filmmaker provides the history of Iran, the country of his birth, where beheadings and hangings are commonplace occurrences. It is an endless series of confrontations between groups that all want something different for their country. Clothing remains the point of departure in the stories about Iran, a land that has tottered for centuries between East and West, the present and the past, freedom and repression. In Baudelaire's words, fashion is the mirror of the times, and that makes it a great metaphor for what is going on in a country.

The film is structured like a collage, interweaving archival footage from Iranian cinema, imagery from various stylistic epochs in the history of Persian painting, graphics from the period of the Islamic Revolution, and works provided by various artists.